EXPEDITIONS

EXPEDITIONS; Surrounded by Egypt, Inspired by the World

Published: September 21, 2000

Correction Appended

(Page 2 of 2)

Mr. Pastore and Mrs. Nasrallah now occasionally garnish their clothes and linens with panels of Indian and Chinese silk. But they never choose imported fabric that screams India or China, just as their own cotton does not necessarily connote Egypt.

That aversion to a stylized Orientalism comes through in Mr. Pastore's interior designs. For the Nasrallahs' 2,700-square-foot Cairo apartment, a typically sprawling space in its wealthy neighborhood, he used color, staggered ceiling heights, Nagada fabric and a bit of whimsy to create a comfortable home in which the Middle East plays just one note.

The overpowering height of the ceilings, 15 feet, made Mrs. Nasrallah and her husband feel they were living in a tower. To humanize the dimensions, Mr. Pastore lowered the ceilings in the corridors, dressed them with cotton in a muted geometric pattern that evokes a Caucasian carpet, and added wood beams. To scale down the expanse of wall in other rooms, he painted the uppermost few feet in dark colors or broke up the space by painting minaret-shaped silhouettes along the walls at eye level.

In one renovated bathroom, Mr. Pastore playfully borrowed from Egyptian village architecture, creating a roomy octagonal shower stall that ascends to a dome punctured with holes for venting and light. It looks like a traditional village house, built for summer coolness and winter warmth.

Mr. Pastore has no problem with modernity, however. The Nasrallahs' kitchen is brought down to family size by a steel grid stretching across the room to hold spot halogen lights.

''When Michel designs a space, he wants you to think everything has always been there,'' said Mrs. Nasrallah, whose lattice-work wooden Egyptian furniture and collection of carved wooden doors now fit seamlessly into the apartment. ''It's space, light and colors. Then the objects are integrated. Nothing should stick out and shout.''

In the house that Mr. Pastore and his family built in the Faiyum oasis, he also took his cues from the environment. Originally a set of four simple mud-brick rooms facing a central courtyard, the walled compound now encompasses pottery workshops and a lush garden of bougainvillea, hibiscus, flame trees, poinsettia and wild roses.

Water from a nearby lake, visible as a ribbon of blue against the backdrop of mauve desert hills, feeds a bathing pool and a stream lined with reeds and filled with water lilies. Date palms dot the property.

It was not always like this. The original houses had been built in 1967 by Ms. Porret, who is also Swiss, and her former husband. For years they stood empty. When she returned with Mr. Pastore and their two small children, in 1970, they found what they call ''a house in a desert of stones.''

As they renovated and added on, the family lived a rustic life. The village, far from the center of Faiyum, had no running water or electricity for 10 years. They built when they had money and according to their needs and fancies. ''We saw that the village houses had palm trees in the courtyard, and we loved that,'' Ms. Porret recalled as she walked the winding pathway through the gardens of her backyard. ''So when we started building, we built around the palm trees that we found on the property.''

And they made their own bricks. ''We built according to concrete needs,'' Mr. Pastore said. ''It was not anything terribly intellectual.''

At first they enthusiastically planted everything they thought might provide shade for them and a habitat for birds. Just about everything but eucalyptus and cactus died. A covered bridge, salvaged intact, stretches from the top of one building to another. Corn grows in pockets of the garden, which is finally a colorful jumble of plants. Mud brick benches, covered with pillows and inlaid with bits of pottery, run along the inside of the courtyard.

Like Nagada, it is a work in progress. ''I never begin a project with an idea that it must be this or that,'' Mr. Pastore said. ''I work totally in the present -- from present to present.''

Photos: CAIRO'S MODERN FACE -- Michel Pastore and Sylva Nasrallah, whose store draws diplomats and design pilgrims; above, her home. (Photographs by Alison Bradley for The New York Times)(pg. F1); INSIDE OUT -- Nagada fabrics: on the bed in the Nasrallahs' Cairo apartment, above left (Sylva Nasrallah is at the window); made into clothing in the store called Nagada, top right; and with Evelyne Porret's pottery, above right. AT FAIYUM OASIS -- Michel Pastore used mud brick in the family compound; right, Evelyne Porret in the courtyard. (Photographs by Alison Bradley for The New York Times)(pg. F15)

Correction: September 28, 2000, Thursday An article last Thursday about Nagada, a textile and housewares shop in Cairo noted for multicultural designs, omitted a letter in an American e-mail address with information about its products. It is sxs99@po.cwru.edu.